I took the week off (most of the week – I have a budget meeting on Thursday) to work on finishing a first full draft. It was a fairly lofty goal given that I’m trying to squeeze in the rest of life during this period. I’m not sure I’ll quite hit the end of a full first draft by Sunday evening next week, but it’s not outside the realm of possibility either. Here’s what I’ve accomplished so far since Friday night:
- Finished the third re-write of chapter 10, which is much better now.
- Rewrote chapter 17 to fit changes in plot better (this was actually a pretty major rewrite)
- Wrote chapter 18 – this rounds out a major sub-plot with a brother.
- Started chapter 19 – I have 1000 words written as of right now.
All of the work I’ve completed above is not in what I would call a polished format, it’s very much draft. Chapter 17 still needs some major work, but I’m going to save it until I go back through the book again. The issues are largely related to character development and I want to try and address all of those problems in one or two passes. Chapter 18 is very short, and will probably need more detail, but it’s plenty good for a first draft, and chapter 10 still needs a considerable amount of polishing. My target, right now, is 21 chapters, meaning I’ve got to finish up 19, with two more to follow (this alone is likely to be 10K-12K words). I haven’t ruled out the possibility of inserting as much as a chapters worth of material earlier in the book to explore some character elements a bit more.
If you’ve read to this point, I suppose you’re wondering what the milestone was, after all I didn’t finish the book or anything. Well, the original target was 80K words. With the start of Chapter 19, I’ve hit that mark. Given the direction I want to go, and the additions I know I need to make, the new target is looking more like 90-100K words.
On Writing Dragons 
I’m chanting, “Hundred thous-and, Hundred thous-and!”
It’s so exciting! It’s almost done! Except for the line editing. And developmental editing. And the editing of the editing. Plus the guy who cleans the editor’s editor’s bathroom probably needs a whack at it with a literary brickbat (he’s been taking classes at the local community college in English 101, which makes him an expert in apostrophe’s). And then, once they’re done, they’ll have shaved it down to a measly 5000 words, and you’ll only be 95,000 from your goal! Oh, and you’ll need a cover, plus the acknowledgments where you point out how supportive Pontius was over the long winter, and how you -had- to put in a character like him to make your book awesomer.
Though I really came along in the spring. Still, “winter” sounds better. How did this become about me? Ah, well, never mind.
Writing is awesome. Glad to hear you’re pushing this baby out soon.
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I’m pretty confident that the editor will only cut it back to 8K words. On another note, I think I hear a challenge in there. If you could describe yourself in 1 sentence (fictional or real – you choose), what would that be? – I can’t promise Pontius the muse won’t get cut from the though.
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Affable, enthusiastic, ADD, with a dark side of addiction.
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Ok, I’m chewing on it.
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It would be amusing, but only if it serves the story. Otherwise, why make extra work to pigeonhole a minor noteworthy like myself in there? A guy like me, we can’t be walk-ons, you’d have to devote entire chapters to my greatness. You might as well write a new book: “Pontius, the Great and Powerful.” I could be this guy running a city where they paint everything green, and…
What’s that? It’s been done? Huh. They stole my idea!
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Nope. Pontius (with a slightly modified name) is a Wispy haired ships captain. Not a major character, but necessary and fits well. He’ll play a larger role in book 2. The dark addiction bit is a nice bit of conflict I can lean on to develop that character that also adds tension.
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Heck yah! Addictions are great for people to avoid doing what they need to do, which creates enormous conflict. Just ask my wife. It creates all sorts of magnificent tension.
Have you consulted the Positive/Negative Trait Thesauruses by Ackerman and Puglisi? Chock full of character traits that makes it easy to mix and match.
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I have not seen this, I will have to check it out.
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I relayed my upcoming immortality as a character in a book to my wife, and she said, “I would have described you in one line with one word: Long-winded.”
See, now you need a fun-loving Mrs. Cominius in there. No, wait, you don’t. That wasn’t a compliment, was it?
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It’s fantastic how far you’ve gotten and how much you were able to get done! It’s so exciting. You should be proud of your achievement thus far. Keep going! You’re almost there (if your book stops stretching on you of course).
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Thanks! I’m so close I wouldn’t dream of stopping now.
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Hope you hit your goal!
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